Girls are affected by stereotypes by age 6, new study shows

Who is "really, really smart?" Boys or girls?

A new study found that young U.S. girls are less likely than boys to believe their own gender is the most brilliant. 

While all 5-year-olds tended to believe that members of their own gender were geniuses, by age 6 that preference had diminished for girls — a difference the researchers attributed to the influence of gender stereotypes. 

"We found it surprising, and also very heartbreaking, that even kids at such a young age have learned these stereotypes," said Lin Bian, the study's co-author and a doctoral candidate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Read more...